The Christmas Story | Part One | The Gift

Christmas at Arena Church presents The Gift.
Let me take you back to the story you hear year after year. It involves a boy, a girl and a baby in a manger. I've a feeling that by now, you know how the narration goes. But the question is, have you ever wondered... why? And how does this story of a time that passed 2000 years ago, relate to me?
We know that Christmas is all about Mary and Joseph, and even Jesus, but I wonder if we know that God chose to make Christmas with you in mind. Why is that? Because when Jesus was born, a new era was ushered in; an era where you no longer had to carry disappointment and pain around like a weight on your back... This would be the era of grace.
When Jesus came to earth, it wasn’t a display of political power or a pompous parade, it was a rescue mission. A mission where the goal was to reunite God and man… where the God of heaven and earth wouldn’t elevate himself, but instead become small… where the King of the universe would lay down his life, for the best of the best, the worst of the worst, and everyone in between, to give them an opportunity for life in all its fullness.
We can get it so wrong when it comes to sin, but all it means is to miss the mark, to mess up, to get it wrong. Isn’t that humanity? We know we mess up. And so many of us think that Jesus came to rub that sin in, to make us feel bad about it. But Jesus never came to rub sin in, he came to rub it out. He came to set us free from it all; the frustration, the hurt, the mess, the weight... he came to take it all so that we could live free.
God isn’t looking to make religious robots that fall in line; he made humanity in its diversity and difference. What he wants to do is turn you back into you. He wants you to experience life in all of its abundance, to realise who you are and why you were made... to live with purpose.
And that’s why Jesus had to come. To live the perfect life and die the perfect death, so that on the cross he could pay the price for our freedom.
The invitation of Jesus is this: all of His goodness, for all of your pain. All of his beauty, for all of your imperfection. All of his peace, for all of your anxiety. All of his courage, for all of your fear. All of his freedom… all of his freedom... if only you would accept his invitation... to walk with him.
And it all started on that night, with a boy, a girl, and a baby in a manger. It was the night that would change the course of human history.